Impact of work performance on body proportions in Blacksmiths: A somatometric analysis

'Traditional Occupation' is the one, which a person acquires or inherits from his parents and passes it on to the next generation. Gross body size and other morphological characteristics of a person involved in such type of occupations provide clues regarding the developmental adaptations these people have undergone in response to variety of work factors or stresses. Present study has been conducted on one of the traditional occupational group of Punjab, the Blacksmiths. A total of 200 adult males ranging in age from 30 to 40 years were measured for various anthropometric measurements of upper limb, lower limb and trunk region on both right as well as left sides of the body with a view to assess their proportionality profiles and body asymmetry. Findings of the study indicate that Blacksmiths have balanced endomorph type (4.55-3.39-2.99) of body physique and shows maximum bilateral asymmetry in the upper region of the body and direction of asymmetry is towards right side.